As you can see, we have had another challenge for our program! That is our program van and our main form of transportation to deliver our program...
Fortunately our Program Director Jamani Wilson and the driver of the other vehicle that crashed into him are both fine.
Unfortunately, the insurance is not going to cover enough to replace the van. We really need your help not just to support our program directors and other program expenses, but to get back on our "wheels"!!!
************************************************************************Buen día a todos, we are Claribel, Carely, Christian, Alanis, Amanda & Jesus, six recently graduated seniors from Escuela Francisco Manrique Cabrera, in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, and we are investing our next year in expanding El Pueblo Unido Program to two new schools. Check out our stories below. We need your help to pay for our expenses (housing, food & transportation) for the next year. Our budget is to cover all of our expenses for less than $19/day per person. Please join us on this incredible journey to help our fellow Puerto Ricans, greatly enhance the educational experience at our schools and help public school students to transform our world for the better!
Details about El Pueblo Unido Program are available at our website.
And a video is linked below...If any extra funds are raised during this campaign, they will be used for our other critical program expenses (school supplies and transportation for our Exploration classes, for example).
El Pueblo Unido Program is a not for profit program and partners with Philanthropic Ventures Foundation (PVF), who serves as the fiscal depository for the El Pueblo Unido Program, to support its mission for educational relief in Puerto Rico.
PVF is a 501(c)(3) public charity dedicated to supporting outstanding charitable work, customizing giving programs for donors, initiating new dimensions in grant-making and acting as the depository for charitable projects.
More information about Philanthropic Ventures Foundation (Pvf): PVF is a public charity based in the Bay Area that was founded in 1991 to test new approaches to creative grantmaking. We work with donors to create customized giving plans to maximize the impact of the philanthropic dollar.
Carely's Story:My name is Carely Mendoza Quiles, I recently graduated from the first specialized school in Design Thinking in Puerto Rico, Escuela Francisco Manrique Cabrera. Early last year, I was able to travel to California with 11 other students, to learn about Design Thinking and then return to Puerto Rico to help transform the teaching and learning in my school. First as a teaching assistant and soon elsewhere in my country through teacher trainings and the implementation of El Pueblo Unido Program in other schools. As a result of the great changes that I have seen in my life thanks to Design Thinking, this year I decided to take a gap-year, together with 10 other fellow graduates, to take a gap year to work with El Pueblo Unido Program and help to innovate education in Puerto Rico. I want to do this because I have seen the changes in the school from which I graduated and I also have seen the changes in my classmates who are now more confident, better leaders and more creative people. That's why I accepted the challenge of being Program Director of El Pueblo Unido Program and I want to expand this new way of teaching with students, schools and people who need to know about it, because the world is constantly evolving and we must grow with it.
Jesus' Story:My name is Jesus Lopez and I started participating in the program at the beginning of October with my first "Intersession" (two week Design Thinking and Explorations program). At first I was skeptical, but I found it more interesting as little by little I became more invested in each "Intersession". I worked with other students from different grades, along with a student from the California exchange group and I could see the impact and change in my fellow students and me. I developed as a leader, worked efficiently in a team, and I learned the importance and value of all ideas and opinions in Design Thinking, among many other things. The best experience I have had in the program is to see how students were motivated to work in their school, painting, rehabilitating classrooms, designing recreation areas for them and in the community, working with senior centers, interviewing the nearby community and involving the school as part of the program. Recently, I have been in collaboration with the interns in the offices of Puerto Rico Innovation and Technology Services (PRITS) introducing Design thinking and working with them on challenges like designing internship programs for high school students, designing STEM classes for women, among others.
Claribel's Story:My name is Claribel Lopez Cruz, I just graduated from twelfth grade. I'll be taking a year off, from school, to expand El Pueblo Unido Program on my island. I will work with five others of my classmates in three schools in Puerto Rico, implementing Intersession with Design Labs, Explorations and Mentoria. I will be a program director in my country and will be providing new opportunities and impacting the young people of these three schools. Thanks to previous donations we were able to begin one of our greatest challenge and adventure, an exchange between teachers and students from Puerto Rico and California. And I was able to go to California and learn a new method of solving problems called "Design Thinking". The opportunity prior donors have given me and my teammates is priceless. This program has transformed my life because now I have a new vision of opportunities and problems and my way of processing and analyzing situations is different.
See more stories and pictures at our website...
guidestar.org/profile/94-3136771